There are some on the right - Mitch McConnell chief amongst them - who fear that the GOP's stance on principle against debt and taxes will backlash against them politically. They are willing to compromise so they appear to be "reasonable", and willing to work with the Democrats, as they capitulate to the further destruction of the American economy and to Obama's "Fundamental Transformation" of who and what we are as a nation.

They are pointing to the Gingrich/Clinton Showdown of late 1995 and early 1996 and the Government Shutdown, which some feel had a detrimental effect on the GOPs popularity and fortunes. But their memories are faulty and their analysis is flawed! Let's analyze the fallout from that showdown!

Please take note of the Federal Debt Chart posted.

Notice that our longest stretch WITHOUT a debt limit increase was from 96 to 2001!! Our 96 Deficit was $107 Billion and after the showdown we had surpluses till 9/11! In 2000 we had a $236 Billion surplus!

Clinton’s popularity SUFFERED during the shutdown! The press then hammered Gingrich as a “crybaby”, which his own persona fostered. GINGRICH’s PERSONAL popularity fell, but the GOP held the house for another 10 years till 2006, and the senate remained in GOP hands all that time except 2000 to 2002! And we elected BUSH in 2000.

Some folks blame Clinton’s re-election on Gingrich’s showdown at the end of 95 and beginning of 96… but Dole SUCKED as a candidate. He was the first McCain! Dole's defeat was because of DOLE!

In all, the Gingrich/Clinton showdown was extremely good for the country, and not bad for the GOP either! Gingrich HIMSELF denounces the decision not to blink, because he personally suffered a popularity drop... but his own issues contributed to that loss of popularity, not just the showdown with Clinton! Today he's barely moving the needle of presidential candidate popularity... and may run one of the shortest presidential campaigns in history! CONSERVATIVES have abandoned hom because he abandoned them! Remember his Global Warming Pow-Wow with Pelosi? He's gone squishy on a number of Conservative issues!

Some IMPORTANT differences between 1996 and today:

Our national debt in 1996 was under 4 Trillion. Today it’s 14 Trillion.

Our deficit was $107 Billion. Today it’s 1.5 TRILLION+.

Spending in 1996 was under $1.9 Trillion. Today it’s $3.4 Trillion.

In 1996, the American People were not sitting on the edge of economic Armageddon. In fact, the economy was doing well was about to rev up! The sleeping giant of American Conservatism was still asleep. While restraint of government growth was important even then... it was not on the radar of the average-joe American at the time.

Today, we are experiencing the TRUE “Worst economy since the Great Depression” and a majority of people understand it’s Obama’s policies that have worsened and extended our economic woes! Under 4 years of Pelosi/Reid we saw a TRILLION DOLLAR increase in annual spending. And ALL OF THAT was deficit spending (borrowed money)! We TRIPLED the deficit. We more than doubled the debt. In 2006 our National Debt was $6 Trillion, and that was after Bush was ROUNDLY and RIGHTLY criticized for increasing it by 50% from $4 Trillion to $6 Trillion over his first 6 years… but he had the dot-com bubble, 9/11 and two wars to contend with! Pelosi/Reid took it from $6 Trillion to $14 Trillion in 4 short years.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THIS! They are telling Congress to CUT, CAP & BALANCE. They’re telling Congress that they OVERSPEND. They’re saying NO to Debt and Taxes!

There is NO REASON to allow political fear to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, either in the budget battle or in the 2012 elections! We are RIGHT. We must STAND for right. We must stand on principles and let the chips fall where they may politically. To the surprise of some, and the delight of most… those chips will fall in the direction of the Conservative Movement!

The United States is over $14 Trillion in debt. We’re spending over $3 Trillion a year, and of that, over $1.6 Trillion is deficit (borrowed) spending. We all know this is insanity. We are now up against the debt ceiling AGAIN, and , at least so far, the GOP is holding the line. But “compromise” is in the wind as a deluge of misinformation is constantly being pumped out of the administration. It is time to both set the record straight, and to admonish the GOP leadership, as well as its rank-and-file, that caving in to negotiate with the socialists and surrender to compromise is NOT a viable option!

We must “Just Say No!” to anything and everything the Democrats propose except draconian cuts to spending!

Say no to new taxes, tax rate hikes, new “fees” or any other action which the Dems deem “revenue enhancement”. These are doomed to fail in their intended purpose… increased revenue… and will have deleterious effect on the American People, and on the already hobbled economy.

Say no to new borrowing and increasing our already incomprehensibly irresponsible debt load. Do not accept ANY increase in the debt ceiling! It is supposed to be a “this far and no further CEILING!” Congress has raised this ceiling so often it seems to have no meaning… and both parties were guilty! Under President Bush it was raised 7 times in 8 years. (Not quite once a year.) In his first 6 years with a GOP congress, the debt went from $4 Trillion to $6 Trillion. This was a 50% increase and he came under severe and well-deserved criticism! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500803_162-4486228-500803.html

But thanks to the election of November, 2006, the reigns of Congress and the keys to the coffers were handed to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In their first 2 years, they added another $3 Trillion to the debt, taking us to $9 Trillion and a debt ceiling short of $10 Trillion when Bush left office.

The debt ceiling has only been raised 3 times so far under Obama in his short 2 and a half years… (Just over once a year) but each time it was by astronomical, multi-trillion dollar numbers!

Obama came into office with a $9 Trillion debt. It is now over $14 Trillion, meaning that in the time he’s been in office, he raised the debt by $5 Trillion, which is a Trillion more than all the debt accumulated in the first 224 years of the United States… the sum total of every administration from Washington through Clinton! Bush came into office with a debt of $4 Trillion. In his first 6 years with a GOP Congress, he added 2 Trillion, or 333 Billion a year. Obama increased our debt by $5 Trillion in his first 30 months!

The insane spending by the 110th and 111th Pelosi/Reid Congresses increased spending by more than a Trillion dollars a year. Were we NOT spending enough in 2006? (By the way, in 2006 our deficit was only $120 BILLION. Our current deficit is nearly $1.7 Trillion, almost 15 TIMES LARGER!)

Supposedly all that spending was to “stimulate the economy” that was so bad under Bush! Well, how’s that working out for you?? Obama promised that the Stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%! EPIC FAIL! Under Obama's application of the Keynesian economic model, demanding more government spending to “stimulate” the economy toward recovery… we’ve had ample demonstration of the failure of the model! All we have to show for all that “stimulus” spending is a further damaged economy, increased unemployment, increased business failures, increased foreclosures, decreased tax revenues and massive debt!

So now we come to the debt ceiling. Government is about to once again max out their credit cards.

In the real world, someone who spends 30% above their income and lives on credit to maintain their lifestyle would soon reach their credit limit. Would any responsible lending institution give them additional cards or raise their limit when they are unable to afford their CURRENT level of debt? Of course not! So why should the American People stand for their representatives in Congress voting to themselves an increase in their ability to borrow yet more?

The answer, of course, is to CUT THE SPENDING! But the Democrats refuse to believe there is any spending that deserves the axe!

Advertisement

Having increased our spending levels by 50% in just the last 4 years, what part of that CAN’T be cut? We survived 230 years as a nation without some of the new programs, departments, agencies, and projects that have been newly funded over the last 4 years! ObamaCare is a nightmarish boondoggle which the People have resoundingly rejected! It’s time for Congress to have the cojones to stand up and pass utter, complete, “as-if-it-never-occurred” repeal of that monstrosity!

The President has stated “We can’t cut our way to prosperity.” The reply should be a resounding ”YES WE CAN!” It is our spending and debt that are keeping the engine of our economy from chugging its way to growth!

The Dems have proposed the 14 Amendment as an end-around Congress for Obama to singlehandedly increase our borrowing. But in fact that very text is the rebuttal to the Dem’s “sky is falling” predictions of default if we fail to raise the debt ceiling!

Paragraph 4 of the 14thAmendment states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Of course the Dems imply that this means we have to borrow to pay all our intended spending!

But what it DOES mean is that it would be unconstitutional for us to not pay the interest on our debt, meaning that the interest would be paid FIRST! Therefore it would be impossible to default! What we would have is a shortfall of revenue to pay all those programs, departments, agencies and projects! Of course, that shortfall would be a Trillion dollars less if we simply rolled back our spending to 2006 levels! WHAT is it that Pelosi/Reid added to our spending that we can’t live without?

The Dems are once again invoking “sky is falling” scare tactics. Much like the rhetoric that resulted in passing a useless and expensive Bailout package back in 2008, and the Stimulus of 2009; the threats of imminent collapse without more borrowing are false. We will see a great stabilization of our economy if congress REFUSES to allow further borrowing and FORCES the government to live within its means. The draconian cuts necessary will NOT hurt the population, but will indeed help them by restoring confidence which will allow the economy to grow, produce jobs, produce taxpayers and increase revenues!

Despite the “MediScare” shrieks of the left… NO GOP PROPOSAL on the table diminishes benefits to current recipients of Medicare or Social Security! And none will affect the future benefits of those 55 and older today. But to NOT address the unsustainability of these programs will insure that a few years down the road there WILL be an insolvency which WILL affect benefits to recipients at that time! We must make the hard choices now to insure viability, or that whole house of cards is sure to collapse in on itself!

Still, the Dems focus on the "revenue" side of the equation. They want to raise taxes, specifically, they want to increase taxes on the rich!

Well, that’ll get some votes from the class warriors amongst their base, but the reality is that raising tax rates does not translate into increased revenues, and in fact, LOWERING tax rates has RAISED tax revenues every time it’s been tried!

Besides that, we simply cannot meet our deficit even if we were to confiscate every single dollar earned by every person earning over $200K annually! See my prior article on that subject: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/the-uncomfortable-truth-we-can-t-soak-the-rich-enough Doing so would not only bankrupt the employers of this nation, creating more unemployed… but would generate only $1 Trillion in additional revenue (ignore the lost revenue from those consequentially unemployed!) while our deficit is 1.7 Trillion – leaving 700 Billion shortfall EVEN THEN!

No, the answer isn’t new taxes. It CERTAINLY isn’t new borrowing. ONLY massive cuts in spending will work! We can start by rolling back the massive spending increases of the Pelosi/Reid legacy

After enduring 3 weeks of Weinergate, which had America "twittering" over weiners... and perhaps redefined the term "twitterpated" - the creative juices of my warped sense of humor were flowing. Now that we've had the final Weenie-Roast (his resignation press conference), I thought I'd post this little bit of poetic justice! I hope you find it amusing!